Thursday, June 19, 2008

For a moment I was worried that I was going to have to sit down to read up on some complicated strategy and spend forever learning a new game – but within moments of opening Five Deer’s latest leisure application (Chinese Checkers Heroes) I realised I was being a bit silly. Because I was thinking of the beast that is Chinese Chess. In the same way that the speed and simplicity of Draughts is to the depth and complexity of Chess, Chinese Checkers is the same to Chinese Chess.

Obvious in hindsight, I know.

In Chinese Checkers, you play on a six pointed star with intermediate points, and the winner is the player who gets their ten marbles (which start grouped together in one point of the star) into the point opposite them - which is where their opposition usually starts. Of course with six points in the star, you can have up to six players in the game, so it can get pretty furious in a heated competition.

Moving is also fast and fortunes can change quickly. The basic move is to slide one piece one point on the board, and the first few moves will be like that. But then, just like the traditional game of draughts, you can jump over pieces. Unlike draughts, you don’t ‘capture’ any enemy pieces - so they stay on the board, and you can also jump over your own pieces. And if you find yourself able to jump again at the end of the first jump, you can keep chaining them together in any direction (including backwards and sideways). In this way, one piece can move a long way.

And that’s before you add in the ‘long jumping’ ability. As long as your path is clear, you can jump over a distant piece. So if you have your piece, a blank space, another playing piece, a blank space, and then a further blank space, you can jump and land in that second space – as long as it’s (a) symmetrical and (b) you’re only jumping over one playing piece at a time. On my first game I watched aghast as even the basic computer AI chained huge jumps together and sprinted across the board to me – on my second game I had it cracked.

That’s the key to Chinese Checkers right there – the very shallow learning curve lets you play a challenging game within about ten minutes of picking up the title, even if like me you’d never played Chinese Checkers in anger before. And the fact that I’ve not had to mention any problems with the programming yet is testament to the skill of Five Deer. Everything is intuitive, there’s very little lag or thinking time, and the five computer AI players all have different personalities in the game.

Being on a hexagonal (ish) grid, the regular d-pad controls aren’t going to work without a headache, but no matter. With ten playing pieces, the application numbers them so you just need to hit the keypad to select which piece to move. All the valid moves are then shown (great for practising spotting your long jumps!) and d-pad left and right cycles through the available moves – of which there can be a lot when you get further into the game.

Being on a hexagonal (ish) grid, the regular d-pad controls aren’t going to work without a headache, but no matter. With ten playing pieces, the application numbers them so you just need to hit the keypad to select which piece to move. All the valid moves are then shown (great for practising spotting your long jumps!) and d-pad left and right cycles through the available moves – of which there can be a lot when you get further into the game.

I like this application, not because it’s flashy, not because it does anything particularly different, put because it presents the game of Chinese Checkers, and gets everything else out the way except playing the game. That’s not as easy as it sounds, and Five Deer should be commended for another easy to use and intuitive slice of fun. Definitely recommended.

I like this application, not because it’s flashy, not because it does anything particularly different, put because it presents the game of Chinese Checkers, and gets everything else out the way except playing the game. That’s not as easy as it sounds, and Five Deer should be commended for another easy to use and intuitive slice of fun. Definitely recommended.